Well, the thing I was worried about has come to pass; my full-time studies are actually more than full time, with them demanding a lot of extracurricular work per course. Combine this with me trying to get a writing pitch together, and something has to give.
So much as I'm sad to do it, I think this game has to go on hold, for at least the next eight months if not longer. Since that's a long hiatus, if anyone wants to treat it as deceased, I wouldn't blame you one bit.
Thanks to everyone for your interest!

"Long story," said Eugene, nodding to each in turn - as much as he could, given the restrictive nature of the suit. "You mentioned needing an exoframe. How about we head into the town that we got the distress call from, and we can tell you all about ourselves - and perhaps figure out what we can do for each other."
After pausing for a while to ensure that the xiticix weren't about to swarm back for a counteroffensive, and ensuring that anything volatile in the stash of gear that was embedded in the hive's walls was properly handled, the group headed back to town. Tamika and Glitter Girl hugged, both happy to be alive; Adam and his charge made themselves scarce, muttering something about needing to move on. Simon limped out to meet the group, eyebrow raised at the new additions, but not getting ready to draw down just yet - especially with a Glitter Boy in tow.
Eugene declined to disembark from the Glitter Boy, but the others were quite happy to indulge in the booze that Grep helpfully brought out into the street. Ianoko and Xelphina exchanged a look of mutual empathy; the Beef Warrior went into the slightly fuzzy torpor that was common for a juicer on downtime; the ley line walker just drank to get their strength back. The dog soldier Dawn pulled off her helmet and put on a bright purple wig that clipped into place from some kind of subdermal attachment system in her skull; off any odd glances, she just said she liked to look pretty.
Eugene began, once everyone was settled. "In war, there are the winners, there are the losers, and then, there are the survivors. The Tomorrow Legion is the third category.
"We are people who've taken a look at the way that the winds are blowing in North America, and we don't like what we see, and we've decided to do something about it. Our leadership includes Lord Coake of the cyber-knights - " Eugene nodded towards Dawn. "As well as the scholar Erin Tarn, and many of the political leaders of more thoughtful, progressive communities, such as Lazlo. We've taken a look at the war between Tolkeen and the Coalition, and the other war brewing between the Federation and the Coalition, and we're endeavoring to help anyone potentially caught in the crossfire - and perhaps, head off the fight altogether.
"Our members come from all walks of life - magicians, psionicists, pilots, soldiers, scholars, humans, mutants, d-bees and dragons. Our credo is that there's a better way to live than the fascism and bigotry of the Coalition's imperialism, or the blood sacrifices and horrors of the Federation's manatocracy. And seeing as how you are situated very close to both of these great powers, if a war does come you'll be in the thick of it. I'm sure you'd like to have some protectors - " Eugene waved towards Phere, Squidge, Fi and BB. "And they in turn would like some institutional and logistical support. We, in turn, would like a presence in the region as well.
"If you're interested, we can talk more. Our chief condition is that we need to be tolerant of other's differences, as long as those differences don't involve intolerance in and of themselves, and attempt to understand how the world impacts us all differently, and how best to form a solidarity that protects us all and allows us to live with dignity in this world."
"Or as an ol' pre-cataclysm show would say: infinite diversity in infinite combinations." Dawn smiled, and held up a furry hand in a difficult-looking hand gesture.
Eugene looked a little embarrassed, but didn't dispute the statement.

The SAMAS squadron was quiet for long, tense moments - with the reinforcements, the battle was looking far less one-sided, though still not a sure thing. Finally, the SAMAS commander spoke.
"Don't let us see you again, or we might forget to forget you were here."
The warning delivers, the squadron turned its jets upwards, and took off, returning to whatever forward operating base they came from.
The others approached, they ley line walker still looking drained, supported by the d'norr and the juicer. The pilot of the glitter boy paused, not too far from the group, and a fuzzy holo-projection of his face appeared in front of him. He was what they used to call African-American, with the interface HUD covering the upper half of his face, even in hologram. The dog boy walked forward, and now the group could see that she was really a dog girl - with some kind of unusual psychic signature that tickled Phere's senses. The dog girl and Phere locked eyes, and there was no doubt in both Phere's mind and Squidge's that she was ex-Coalition as well. As for the Glitter Boy itself, it was unquestionably pre-Cataclysm technology, and barring a few nicks and scratches it still shone with all the colors of a rainbow.
"You have us pegged, ma'am," said the holographic projection of the glitter boy pilot. "We're with the Tomorrow Legion. It looks like you took care of the hive for us, though, so we're at a bit of a loss..."
"Could give 'em the pitch," said the dog girl.
"Hmmm." The pilot thought it over, then nodded. "How about we introduce ourselves. I'm Eugene, this young fuzzy lady is Dawn, and to your right is Xelphina, Nystri The Magnificent, and the Beef Warrior." He pointed to the d'norr, the mage, and the juicer in turn. "We're essentially a response team, helping out places that need protection from nightmarish forces both human and inhuman, which is why we responded to your general distress call. Now, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourselves...?"

Things are okay. I just have an informal rule of "wait for half or more of the players to post before progressing the game."
But since it's been brought up: do folks want me to continue? Bearing in mind I am heading into full-time school in the fall, so if I have to cut back on any games, I'd as soon as cut back on the ones not seeing much activity.

The pilot of the Super SAMAS was almost visibly disgusted as Phere moved in front of Tamika. "You really want to die for a fuckin' d-bee, deserter?" From the tone of his voice, all doubts as to whether or not the pilot was Coalition - or at least a strong sympathizer - evaporated.
"I dunno, squad. Hive doesn't look fully destroyed to me. I figure we ought to call in a death's head, carpet bomb the area with plasma bombs. If that town over there gets destroyed, well, shit happens - "
The SAMAS was cut off as a sonic boom washed out over the field - literally washed over it, the crops swaying from the noise. All of the SAMAS immediately turned in the direction it came from - which was towards the ley line. Half a mile away, glinting in the sun, the group could make out the telltale visual profile of a glitter boy, racking its boom gun with one hand while its other was holding a more conventional heavy rifle.
The SAMAS were all uninjured - either the pilot had missed, or wasn't aiming at anything. Its gun racked, it began to advance. The group could make out others advancing with it as well - some kind of d-bee with horns similar to Ianoko's, a human spellcaster in telltale ley line walker armor, what looked like a juicer, and what looked like a Coalition dog soldier. The d-bee and the juicer were supporting the ley line walker, who looked ready to collapse in exhaustion, but they all looked ready for a fight.
The Glitter Boy pilot went on loudspeaker - his voice was deep and self-assured. "Sorry. My finger slipped. I agree with that woman's advice, and I suggest our friendly neighborhood SAMAS squadron take it."

As the team made their way back the way they came, the hive suddenly went active again, on high alert. The group had to flatten themselves against the walls to avoid the warriors and hunters buzzing past, costing them precious seconds. For a heart-stopping moment, Squidge thought her telepathic fog had slipped, but BB picked up the reason why - and as soon as radios were turned on, the group found out why.
"... say again, this is SAMAS patrol Echo-Niner, squad actual to command. We have eyes on the area where the big flash of light came from and can confirm some d-bee thing made it through a rift. Will circle around to confirm."
The team made their way towards the exit, crawling outside the hive - the last of them all but pushed aside by a Xiticix warrior buzzing into the air. They could see a SAMAS patrol - at least a dozen strong - circling up above. The radio transmission continued. "This is Echo-Niner, we have eyes on sai tick - say ti - however you pronounce it, those damn bug things! Requesting immediate carpet bombing of this area - "
He was cut off as the improvised explosives detonated, cracking the hive in half and killing the queen instantly. Squidge and Phere could sense its death scream, that slight uptick of psychic energy before a powerful mystical being was taken out of the world.
The cloaking field had fallen short, but it didn't matter - between the team's guns and powers for those still close to the hive, and the thunder of railguns, plasma projectors and mini-missiles in the sky above, the bugs were cut to pieces. Bug viscera rained down on them as the firing finally ended, and then the group saw the SAMAS patrol circling them from above - as one of them broke off, landing not too far from them. It was a Super SAMAS pilot, encased in what detractors and sympathizers alike nicknamed "The Grinning Demon" after its distinctive skull-shaped helmet.
The pilot turned on his loudspeaker so that they could all hear - it was the same voice as from the radio. He looked them over, and spent a long time staring at Phere and Squidge, and their painted-over but still recognizable armor sets from the war. The visor then turned towards Tamika, and one of the shoulder plasma projectors moved with it, pointing at Tamika.
"Well, well," he said. "What have we here."

Firanis located something that could be of use - a corroded SAMAS suit, one of the older models, that looked like it still had both mini-missiles loaded.
A little gruntwork from BB and it was torn free from the wall, and with that out of the way, setting them to detonate would be easy - and Firanis also spotted a good crevasse to stuff it into, that would rip through the queen and the hive, preserving a good chunk of their gains.
All they had to decide was how much time they wanted to give the bomb - too long, and the risk of discovery would be greater; too little and they'd never get clear going back the way they came. Of course, if they could blast their way out of the hive, that wouldn't be a problem... though it would certainly set off every bug in the hive surrounding them.

"I think she's eating it," said Tamika, with some disgust. "I think this is part of the xenoforming process - they feed off a planet's magical fields and convert it into... whatever they use to build with and convert things with, that purple stuff. I don't think it's protecting her, though... it's more like a meal than a suit of armor."

Firanis found quite a number of magical trinkets, artifacts, talismans and medallions on the mage, as well as a few notes - stuck together with xiticix resin and requiring BB to pry the book free from the wall. Tamika readied her frozen shotgun in case the rummaging caused the xiticix to attack.
"Mages, especially Federation ones, can be sticklers about techniques they've developed. There's a good chance he's the only one who knows." She didn't sound confident, and lamely added, "I think weapons of mass destruction are bad, for the record, whether they open rifts or just make the area radioactive for ten thousand years."
Having gotten all they could from the embedded mage, the group took their final turn, and emerged into the queen's domain. The queen was being attended by several drones, as well as a half-a-dozen warrior-caste guards. She had a bulbous membrane around her abdomen, where the eggs were laid from, that was also glowing with a soft purple energy - the faint outlines of what looked like a sword were inside of her. She was secreting some kind of purple mucus - possibly important to the xenoforming process - and it didn't take a large intuitive leap to say that she was feeding off the magic in the sword in her belly to do it.
Embedded in the walls was evidence of other, brave - or at least, foolhardy - defenders of Earth that had fallen, their equipment embedded in the walls of the hive. Some standard-issue Wilk's and Northern Gun gear, and what looked like a rickety exoframe for a power armor suit, make unknown. There would be quite a bit of credits in it for them, if they killed the queen and didn't completely obliterate the hive.
While the queen was large, she wasn't formidable - there were easily a dozen vulnerable points on her, and striking any one of them would ensure she'd never lay another egg at the least, and would more likely be stone dead. The problem was what to do afterwards, because killing the queen was likely to finally alert the hive as to their presence, precautions or no precautions.

"Aheh. Yes. Yes, it was Tolkeen, wasn't it. No, I knew of him, more than anything. I knew of the dark things they proclaimed they had to do to prevent the fall, and I knew that the fall happened regardless. And all of us devils had nowhere to go. Well, not at first." He coughed, and a little blood dribbled out the sides of the mask.
"Oh, if you're about to reach for a medical kit or a healing spell, don't bother. My own magic is currently making sure that my heart stopping isn't as big an issue as it should be, but sooner or later they'll figure out I'm here and extract whatever magic they can. Should have let go long ago, but I wanted to see it. Not many see the inside of a xiticix hive." He rolled his head slightly to look at the others. "Clever of you to figure out how."
He coughed again, and there was more blood. "Doesn't matter. The spell works, albeit, not... haha, not as cleanly for the mage casting it as it should be. The Federation's going to love it. Dropping a xiticix hive out of any nearby ley line will do wonders for our reputation. Let the Coalition spend their soldiers and their silly little guns mopping it up. Might lose a few mages, but one mage for an outpost is exactly the kind of arcane calculus they'll love." He chuckled darkly. "They should name it after me. I demand that they - that..."
The mage slumped, and spoke no more.

With care, the adventurers made their way inside the hive.
Being inside was eerie - the group had plenty of light, and it was fortunate, because nothing inside was built for a creature that relied on eyes. There were some allowances for those that couldn't fly, but not many - tunnels took strange twists and turns and occasionally, the group wound up doubling back.
Squidge felt the onset of a slight headache, while Firanis had to occasionally smack the side of the white noise generator. But they made it in far enough that they were reasonably sure that one more turn would take them to the queen's chamber - and with the queen out of action, the xiticix's ability to breed would be nullified.
However, a sight at the turn towards the tunnel stopped the group dead - someone, apparently a mage, bedecked in rune-carved composite plate, was somehow embedded in the wall, in what felt like a combination of merging and teleportational accident. Around the edges of the fusion, the group could see the beginnings of the xenomorphing process that the xiticix used to change their environment. The mage himself was semi-conscious, his face hidden behind a ley line walker's mask. He looked up at the approaching group.
"Well, well," he said, weakly. His head rolled to the side, looking at Adam (assuming Adam was present.) "Well, well."

As soon as Squidge found the right frequency, the xiticix settled down somewhat. They were agitated - the death-scent still hung in the air - but the various tricks they'd pulled to blind them had paid off. Instead, they began to fan out in a general search pattern, looking for prey that was right under their noses.
As they did, the ports and cracks that they used to enter and exit the hive became apparent, as the hunter and warrior bugs flew into and out of them, and the lowly land drones scurried through. It'd take some flight, some climbing, or some athletic skill to get far enough up the side of the hive to access one of the ports, but once inside, finding and killing the queen should be relatively easy...

As the final tweaks on the white noise generator were started, and as Phere's final distrubtion of xiticix scent glands was completed, insectile forms began creeping out of the hive's exit points, their antennae twitching in the air.
"Fi..." said Tamika, nervously, as Firanis pushed the button. Instantly, the xiticix looked confused. They took to the air in an erratic pattern, but that pattern was still a pattern. Phere could sense the after-impression of their telekinetic weapons as they were armed.
"Squidge..." said Tamika, still nervously, as the catgirl looked to the psychic. "Can you, you know...?"

So I looked up the rules on upgrading the ship and it turns out that ship upgrades are on a different economy than our personal pay. However, an emergency share of loot is still probably a good idea.
That brings me to my question: what're the stats for our ship, and do we get to upgrade anything now that we're level five?